EU Holiday, September 02 (London Stalling)

I booked a late night flight back to London as I figured I'd need most of three days to see everything in Italy. The problem was I got so far ahead of schedule I didn't really have anything planned. I started off by trying to head south of the city to Via Appia (Appian Way). It's not really anything too famous, just an old stone street and some buildings up on one of the old hills of Italy. I had some rough details about how to get there, but it wasn't near any train station so I had a lot of walking to do. Like usual I didn't actually check the distances, and after walking for about 30 minutes I still wasn't seeing anything familiar so decided to abandon the plan and head back.

Since it was early in the day I stopped by Campo De Fiori once again, to find out it is actually a marketplace, they just close up at 3pm. I was also about to die from dehydration, so I grabbed a litre of Gatorade and some milk, drank it in about two minutes and felt no more refreshed than before it.

Altare della patria.

Next I tried to find the Capuchin Crypts, I knew the street it was supposed to be on in the city, but just couldn't locate it. I'm pretty sure I walked straight past it, just didn't know what I was looking for or how to get to the entrance perhaps. Kept going up Via Veneto to the Borghese Gardens instead. It's the large park area in Rome or something, with a whole bunch of different things to see. Gardens, a lake, a big gallery building etc.

Piazza del Popolo.

After that it was time to go back to pick up my bags that I left at the hotel and travel back to London. After last weeks disaster at customs I'd booked a seat close to the front of the plane and ran to customs and on to the baggage claim in quick time. And there was no bags. I just heard the end of an announcement as I was entering the area that there was some delays expected. It was only 10:30pm so I wasn't too concerned. One or two announcements later it was 11:00pm and they opened up a desk where people could get their luggage sent to their home if they didn't want to wait around any longer. Not a good sign, and not an option for me as I was leaving London again on Sunday and couldn't risk having my bags go through the mail.

Half an hour later we got an explanation that a technical issue was preventing staff moving between planes to get the bags out, whatever that means. Also a friendly reminder that in five minutes the last trains to London would be leaving. I was pretty much stuck because I needed my bags. And just after that a slow stream of bags came on to the carousel. It was around 12:15am before mine came through however, and then I was left to figure out what to do next. I had a look at all of the bus markers and found one that sounded like it was going into central London. It was a crappy commuter bus though, so it made at least one hundred stops and took more than an hour. I then had to find another bus heading north, and I think I was finally done with my travel at 2:30am, not a great day.